News-Antique.com - Dec 31,2009 - On 22 and 23 January, Sotheby’s will begin the sale season with Important Americana, including furniture, folk art, silver, prints, decorative arts and carpets and will be led by The Important Ranlett-Rust Family Chippendale Figured Mahogany Bombé Slant-Front Desk, Probably by Francis Cook, Marblehead, Massachusetts, circa 1770, An Important American Silver Punch Bowl, Cornelius Kierstede, New York, 1700-1710, and a Fine and Rare Molded Copper Figure of an Indian with Bow and Arrow, Probably Harris & Co., Boston, circa 1880. The two-day sale will begin on Friday 22 January with a 2pm session offering silver, and prints, and conclude on Saturday 23 January with a 10am session of furniture, folk art and carpets. Chinese Export Porcelain from the Private Collection of Elinor Gordon will be offered at 2pm on Saturday 23 January. Works from the sale will be on
exhibition at Sotheby’s New York galleries alongside the Private Collection of Elinor Gordon beginning 16 January.

Important Americana: Silver and Prints, 22 Jan, 2pm Among the highlights of the silver and prints offered in the January sale of Important Americana is An Important American Silver Punch Bowl, Cornelius Kierstede, New York, 1700-1710 (est. $400/800,000), the most massive known piece of early 18th century American silver. The bowl has descended in the family of preserved as an historic site. In March of 1776, Loring and his wife evacuated to London, escaping the Revolutionary War.
Loring’s son, Joshua Jr., remained in America and continued to fight with the British army. Soon after, however, Loring Jr. fled to London, taking with him few possessions. Among the pieces taken was the present lot, which had been buried in the Commodore Joshua Loring, whose stately home in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, the Loring-Greenough House, has been family well for safekeeping during the war. Once Loring Jr. was reunited with his family in London, the monumental bowl was
stored in a bank vault, where it has remained unused for over 230 years.

The Maxwell Vase: An Important American silver presentation vase, Thomas Fletcher and Sidney Gardiner, Philadelphia, retailed by Baldwin Gardiner, New York, 1829 (est. $250,000-350,000) will also be among the highlights. After the Wall Street Crash of 1825, the overall value of the New York Stock Exchange (then 67 companies) fell by 30%; by 1829 eighteen companies would fail or be shut down. The District Attorney for New York, Hugh Maxwell, instigated a criminal investigation against many of the directors for fraud. In 1829, a group of “New York Merchants” commissioned this 24-inch tall testimonial for Maxwell, one of the most imposing pieces of silver created in early 19th century America. The commission involved its own fraud, though, as the New York retailer Baldwin Gardiner covertly contracted Thomas Fletcher of Philadelphia (his late brother’s partner) to design and make the item – but Gardiner would stamp his own name on it, and the secret was to be kept to avoid backlash in New York! In the collection of the New York Law Institute since Maxwell’s death, the